Table 1 Reporting quality assessment framework: For each study, the four questions are answered with one of the presented options. The corresponding points from all four categories are then added to a sum score per parameter
Categories | Questions | Answer options | Points | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Reference | Does the publication mention the parameter? | No | 0 | |
Yes | 1 | “Gait speed was individually set” | ||
Strategy | Does the publication describe a strategy for the adaption of the parameter? | No | 0 | |
Yes | 1 | “Body weight support was gradually decreased as the patients improved” | ||
Boundaries | Does the publication mention boundaries for the parameter settings? | No | 0 | |
Yes, one boundary | 1 | “Guidance force was lowered to a minimum of 40%” | ||
Yes, both boundaries | 2 | “Gait speed was initially set to 1 km/h and then increased to a maximum of 2.5 km/h” | ||
Actual settings | Does the publication report the actually used parameter settings? | No | 0 | |
Yes, as a single group mean | 1 | “Patients trained with an average guidance force of 94% (standard deviation: 8%)” | ||
Yes, as group means over the course | 2 | “Initial body weight support was 44% (SD 6%) and could be lowered to 15% (SD 10%) over the course” | ||
Yes, as individual means | 2 | The study includes a table with the averaged settings per subject over all trainings | ||
Yes, as individual means over the course | 3 | The study includes a table with an average setting per subject for each the intial training and the final training | ||
Yes, as individual means over the course and within single therapies | 4 | The study includes Lokomat output files |